


It's A Shadow

by Bittodeath



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Pre-Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23689186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bittodeath/pseuds/Bittodeath
Summary: Darth Vader dies as Anakin Skylwaker... and wakes up in his own past, five years old and with all his memories.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 54
Kudos: 881
Collections: All Time Travel All the time, Star Wars





	It's A Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many Star Wars drafts. This thing is probably the shortest of all because even though it could be expanded upon, I don't want to do it. This is more a journey through feelings than anything else.
> 
> In other words I just want Obi-Wan and Anakin to be HAPPY DAMMIT.

It’s been a long time since Anakin was Anakin, and not Vader. It’s been a long time since he knew peace. He finds it within his last breaths, held in his son’s arms. He finds it in clear blue eyes staring back at him. He finds it when he finally joins the Force, and is reunited with his Master.

And he opens his eyes.

The night is quiet and hot, and he knows it deeply, down to his bones. He knows this scent and the peculiar atmosphere of a sand-covered planet. He knows Tatooine deep within his soul.

It makes no sense, but he doesn’t panic. The Force soothes him, tells him there is nothing to fear. This is another chance, and he is elated.

Until he remembers.

The Sith, the slaughters, _I HATE YOU_ , his wife. The younglings hoping for his help only to be slaughtered at his hand.

He very nearly throws up, but knows better than to do that.

“Ani?”

Her voice is soft, quiet. He’d know it anywhere. She’s been his everything for so long, and he could never really let her go.

He looks up, blue eyes too aged in his young face, and nearly cries, but he is a child of Tatooine and knows better than to waste water.

She knows. He can tell, from the way she holds herself, the sadness in her eyes. She knows what he has just decided, what he needs to do.

“I have to go.”

She doesn’t try to hold him back. She always knew that it might happen one day, that she shouldn’t let the opportunity go to waste, if she ever could give him a better life. She’s only had him for five years – without counting the time she bore him – but she loves him fiercely. She loves him, enough to let him go, even if it breaks her heart.

She is swift and sure in removing his chip once he’s shown her where it is – in his thigh, not very deep. She bandages the incision even as he sends a wave of healing into his body. He’s five, and he’s fifty past, and he knows much now.

She fills a pack with food and everything he might need on his trip. He adds small pieces of technology he knows he will need. He’s always been a scavenger, and he thinks, ruefully, that making a lightsabre from scavenged parts suits him better than any he ever had. Even if he’s five and never owned a lightsabre.

He’s five and he’s twenty, a General, a Master in his own right. He stows away on a ship, never promising to come back. He doesn’t know if he will. He hopes so. It’s a long way to Illium, but he is small, he is trained and the Force is with him.

He finds his crystal almost as soon as he steps in, and no one is the wiser. He’s learnt to hide his presence a long time ago, and he’s more powerful than they are. He has always been, but now he has all the experience he needs to slip by unnoticed.

His lightsabre, when he finally assembles it, isn’t pretty. It’s cobbled together and twisted and it looks like it’s going to fall apart, but it won’t. He knows it won’t.  
He is five and Palpatine isn’t expecting him. It’s a long way to Coruscant, to find the Senator – the Sith. The man who ruined him, beyond recognition. Who called himself a friend, when he was nothing else than a slaver. It’s a long way to Coruscant, but the Sith is sleeping and unaware he is there, in his chambers.

He would be strong enough to fight him, but he doesn’t want to take any chance. He did that before, when he cut off Master Windu’s hand. He knows where this path leads, and he won’t be reckless or arrogant.

Sidious dies in his slumber, never knowing what befell him. Maul is somewhere in the galaxy, still very young, still only an Apprentice. He’ll be found in due time, but the line of Bane ended. There won’t be any Sith coming from them anymore.

His hands shake a little when he stuffs his lightsabre back into his boot. He reeks – he hasn’t changed his clothes since he left Tatooine, and he’s been sweating nervously. It’s been weeks already.

He kneels down, breathing, and settles into meditation. Relaxes the tight grip he held over his presence, over his power, and lets it wash over the planet. He’s been told he’s like a star – blinding and burning – and he feels his presence tear at the Dark web the Sith Master spun over Coruscant. Feels the Jedi in the Temple awaken at the storm they feel in the Force, as he blazes through and destroys everything Sidious ever created, as he crumples in holocrons and crumbles the Altar under the Temple.

Balance needs the Dark Side, but the Dark Side is already powerful enough – in the greedy politicians, in Dathomir and its daughters, in the many worlds under its power. He is the Chosen One and the Son hasn’t yet been set free, the Daughter hasn’t yet died. There is balance, as it should be.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been kneeling in meditation before the Jedi Masters found him. He feels their presences poking at his, their sharp disgust and horror when they realize what is laying there, on the bed. He comes back slowly, and blinks his eyes open.

He is five years old, blazing power in a Sith Lord’s chamber, and the Masters don’t quite know what to make of him. He opens his eyes to Master Yoda standing right in front of him, and peering at him curiously. He can’t help his smile, even though the last time he saw the little Master in person, they weren’t on the best terms. 

Even though last time, it was the very same green troll who ordered he be killed.

He can’t fault him – not after what he’d done. It would have been justice.

“Hello, Master Yoda”, he says.  
“Hello, young one. A long way from home, you are, mmh?”

His smile widens.

“No. Merely coming back to it, Master.”

Yoda hums again as the Council looks at him, shocked and apprehensive. He doesn’t know nearly half of them. But he recognizes Master Windu. His grin widens – he might never have liked the stern Head of the Order, but he’s always recognized his strength and skill, and now, now that he’s older – he is five – he can see the wisdom of his words. He knows why he wasn’t trusted – and they were right, oh they were right – and he smiles.

He misses Obi-Wan.

They must not have understood it was he who murdered the Sith Lord, because Master Koon is very gentle when he picks him up – that should be mortifying. He’s too old to be picked up, but he finds he doesn’t mind – to take him back to the Temple with them.

They don’t start asking questions right away, even though Anakin wants to tell them the truth. It’s the middle of the night, and they want him to sleep. They don’t know what he was doing there – they think him traumatized, probably. He’s delighted by the shower, and by the Initiate clothes they give him. There’s nothing else for him to wear, and nowhere else for him to be.

He’s waiting by the Council chambers first thing in the morning. It’s Master Windu who finds him, and he’d never known the Master could be so kind and soft when he talked to young ones.

“What are you doing here, youngling? You should be in the crèche, sleeping still.”  
“My name is Anakin”, he answers, looking up at the Master who crouches to be at his height. “And I thought the Council might want to know what happened last night. Then, I’ll find Obi-Wan.”

Master Windu is surprised, he can tell. He doesn’t know which part surprised him the most.

“Do you mean Padawan Kenobi?”

Anakin nods. It won’t be the same, of course. He was a Knight, still is one. Could probably pretend to Mastery, now. It would be strange to be apprenticed to Obi-Wan once again, in a few years.

He finds he wouldn’t mind.

Of course, the Council had plans to meet up and discuss the mess of the previous night. He doubts many of them found sleep again after all of that. They file in one by one and he’s already standing in the middle of the room, waiting for them to settle. They are unnerved by his stance and his presence, he can feel it.

He doesn’t blame them.

He did it once, and look where it got him.

He waits for them all to be settled, feeling Master Yoda’s gaze weighing on him. He’s pretty sure the green troll knows more than he lets on. He looks over all the chairs.

He misses Obi-Wan.

He bows perfectly and the Masters stiffen a bit more.

“Hello, Councilors”, he says. “My name is Anakin Skywalker and yesterday night, I killed the Sith Master in his sleep.”

There’s an uproar at his words, and he could never resists riling the Council up. That hasn’t changed. Calm only comes back when Master Yoda establishes it.

“By a lightsabre, Senator Palpatine was killed”, Master Yoda points out. “Where the weapon is, you know?”  
“Here, Master”, he replies, pulling the ‘sabre from his boot. He shows it, and ignites it. The blade is blue, just like his 501st.

The Council gasps.

“And where did you find this weapon?”  
“I made it”, Anakin shrugs, and proves his words, disengages the blade and unmakes his ‘sabre with the Force, before putting it back together. “I have a story to tell you, Masters, if you are willing to hear it.”

They are willing.

And so he tells them. He wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t believe him. He tells them, still. He tells them everything. Even the shameful parts, the ones he has never told anyone but the Sith Master. The Tuskens. The clones and the war. He tells them about Order 66, and about killing the younglings himself. They are ashen-faced.

Even if it was just a tale, it is a horrific one to hear from one so young as he is.

He’s past his fiftieth Name-Day.

They believe him, if only because his story is too extraordinary. They believe him, when the doors are wrenched open and a red-haired Padawan stumbles in, panting heavily.

“ANAKIN”, the Padawan screams, and it’s relief, it’s delight, it’s hope and happiness and a fierce desire to protect.  
“Master”, he replies in a breath, and he can’t help it, he cries, he cries and he cries, even as Obi-Wan kneels by his side and draws him into his arms, holding him close, his fingers pressing his head into his shoulder as they grieve and sob together, the way they were never allowed to do.  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, _I’m sorry_ ”, he says, again and again, because it will never be enough, and he can’t believe Obi-Wan _remembers_ , but he couldn’t do this alone.

Obi-Wan is here.

“I forgive you, dear one”, Obi-Wan whispers against his hair.

The Force bursts with happiness and relief and something other that tightens his throat, something bright and good and true, because he was _forgiven_ even after everything.

“You were my brother”, he says in a breath. “I loved you.”

Obi-Wan smiles and pulls away just slightly, not bothering to wipe his tears or Anakin’s, his hands wrapped around his face.

He’s five.

He’s nine, alone and scared.

He’s nineteen, in love and desperate.

He’s twenty-two, broken and bitter.

He’s twenty-eight, all pain and wrath and bitter resentment.

He’s past fifty, hopeful once again.

He’s at peace.

“You are my brother, Anakin”, Obi-Wan says, and he feels like sobbing again. “I love you.”

Once, that wasn’t enough.

Today, it’s all he can ask for.

He’s five and his Master holds him close, and he knows he is safe. Obi-Wan will never let anything even happen to him again.

He’s five, and he should know better than to waste water crying.

Somehow, he finds he doesn’t mind.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I hope you liked it, even though this is very different from what I usually write.


End file.
